Quilt from a Thread
by An Apple Bleeds At Twilight
Summary: A year after WotE. Visiting Discipline one night, Sandry makes a surprise for her foster family and while making it, she remembers...ONESHOT


**Quilt from a Thread**

Visiting Discipline Cottage for a while seemed silly after leaving for her great-uncle's a few years ago, after his heart attack and after finding Pasco a dancing school where he could learn properly, but Lady Sandrilene fa Toren missed the cozy cottage where she and the other three met. Sighing as she recognized the familiar rooms, she recalled the fun, adventure and the grief she had shared with her foster-brother and sisters.

Pausing at the door of Lark's room, she saw a loom in the corner and her mind beckoned her to use it, to listen to the rhythmic clack of the shuttle again and to work with her magic.

Slowly, Sandry entered the room and picked up the loom to take a seat near the window, where early morning clouds floated across a pale blue sky. "I wish all of you were here right now so we could climb on the roof and talk like we used to." She whispered.

The noble smiled at the thought of her foster-siblings. Running a hand over the smooth wood of the loom she took a small bag from her pack and rummaged through it, trying to find the correct color of thread. _"I hope Lark doesn't mind if I use this." _Sandry thought, fixing a large spool of honey-gold thread to the loom, saving a smaller spool of black for later.

The air around her tingled and she swallowed tight as she weaved, not because of the sensations but of the memories that came in a flood as she weaved. She thought of the softness of thread, the feeling of cloth upon your back and the easiness of which it moved now beneath her fingers. For another twenty minutes she weaved and finally looked at her first piece of her job and put her weaving aside, rolling her stiff neck.

Stretching her legs, she sighed. Sandry had no idea what had drove her to weave a picture of a spindle of thread with a borderline of small black and yellow meadowlarks. She supposed it was the loneliness that draped heavily over her like a rain soaked cloak. There was room for three more pictures and designs, enough to make a quilt.

The young woman exited the cottage and walked to the market. It wasn't so busy as it would be later in the day, but she would enjoy the quiet. Cornflower-blue eyes gazed ruefully as she was reminded bitterly of her siblings. Briar, Tris, and Daja had been quite busy with their new homes and their teachers were off with their new students and hadn't had time to come visit her. Sandry had been busy with the politics of Emelan and the duties as being Duke Vedris' heir so she hadn't done much traveling and hadn't been able to write letters to them, or even speak to the four through their connection since the visit a year ago with her cousin, the Empress of Namorn and she missed them all bitterly.

She passed a small blacksmith's shop and felt the heat of the fire, brushed over by a slight breeze, calm her nerves. The fire pulsed and flared as the smith worked the bellows. Sandry remembered the forest fire and the living metal on Daja's left hand.

A stall she passed was selling thread and she purchased a large spool of dark green thread and spool of pale blue. Putting them in her purse for now, she walked down to a stall selling plants and was reminded of Briar. The roses smelled sweet and the plants were properly watered and groomed, Briar would be impressed. _"If he were here."_ She chided herself softly as she brushed a finger on a plants leaf, stroking it. She remembered the outbreak of the disease that had killed Rosethorn and when Briar went to bring her from death.

Sandry glanced at the sky and noticed the clear sky had darkened, hinting a storm. A drizzle was already beginning to start and stalls were beginning to close. Sandry just walked through the rain, enjoying the feel of it on the back of her neck. It was cool and soothing and she thought of when Tris would conjure up small storms or when she stopped the pirates from raiding with her water cyclones.

She quickly went inside Discipline Cottage and heard thunder rumble in the distance, a sign for a big douse of rain to follow. Sandry sighed and lit a few candles and brought them to Lark's room to continue her weaving. Sandry took a spool of white and her new pale blue thread and fixed one to the loom, and weaved. The shape of the wild wind as it brushed by, the angry storm clouds that raged outside and the bright lightning that sparked in Tris' hair came to her mind as she weaved. Another twenty minutes passed and she had created a picture of a storm cloud with lightning, and an outline of a gust of wind with the borderline of white mirrors.

Taking the green thread, she fixed it to the loom and listened to the shuttle's clack, falling into a rhythm as the sight of vines climbing and growing up a trellis the scent of greenery and roses filled her mind as she weaved a picture of vines. Taking a smaller spool of crimson she made a border of red roses.

She took a large spool of red-orange and began weaving as she had done with all the others. This one she made an image of flames, feeling the heat and rage of the fire as she created the last piece. Taking a smaller spool of silvery-white she created a border of hammers.

She looked at the quilt and smiled, now she'd have something so she could remember them, even if they did come back or wrote to her. Sandry then went and spread it out onto the kitchen table, admiring her work. Hurrying back, she cleaned up her mess and prepared herself a simple meal of bread, cheese and meat, deciding to eat it on the roof Taking her coat, she climbed up and spread her coat out to sit on, watching the rain fall around her.

"_I remember when we'd all sit around here and talk."_ Sandry spoke through their connection and sent an image of the roof to them.

Daja answered, _"I do too, saati."_

Tris calmed the storm around Sandry, and replied, _"Niko and I are riding to Discipline tomorrow."_

Daja answered again, _"In a week or so, Frostpine needs to finish up here in Tharios."_

Sandry heard Briar chuckle and say, _"There's something you're hiding, Sandry."_

The noble sighed resignedly, _"How can you tell Briar?"_

"_I can just tell. Otherwise I wouldn't know you well enough." _Briar replied.

Tris and Daja laughed and Sandry scowled, _"There is something I'm hiding but you'll have to wait until you all get here. It's a surprise."_

"_A surprise?"_ Tris, Daja and Briar said in unison.

Sandry laughed, _"Yes."_

The four said their goodbyes and Sandry blocked off her connection, climbing down from the roof, food eaten and body tired.

Sandry made herself a makeshift bed on the floor, in Lark's room, and fell asleep dreaming of her quilt.

The four's magic rested in that quilt as it did in the spindle of thread, made so many years ago…

Perhaps it was true what some people said: You can make a quilt from just a thread.

What it meant was that if one thread came detached from a quilt, the others would hold it together and as you grow, people will come in and out of your life and soon you will have a 'quilt of friendship.'

Perhaps it was for the best that her parents died of smallpox, that Daja's boat was destroyed and she was named a _trangshi_, that Briar was caught and sent to Winding Circle, and that Tris was cast out of her family. Or else she would have never met them, befriended them, and intertwined their magic.

They were all part of the Circle, all part of her foster family.

And she would never trade family for anything in the world.


End file.
